Should I format and reinstall? [solved]

[Tedel]

Hello,

Now that I see that Sabayon 14.01 is out, I have a few doubts. The first one is that whether I should reinstall from scratch.

I ask this because Sabayon has switch completely to SystemD and I am still using OpenRC. I tried to switch via eselect, but I found it a bit buggy compared to the LiveDVD I just downloaded to give it a try. (Not criticizing, just pointing out something I noticed, OK? Also, I just could not make KDM start and I still saw XDM when logging in. With OpenRC I see KDM, and I don't know what happens.)

I am also curious (and interested in using, if possible) about USE flags. I understand that Sabayon preconfigure Gentoo so that using USE flags is not needed. Anyway, what if I wanted to use flags that speed software for KDE, dropping GTK (Gnome), which, as I could read from Gentoo wiki, would speed up the system? Using flags would be new for me, so I would appreciate some lights in this topic.

Best,
Tedel

[Provia]

Hi Tedel,
for my experience i suggest you to format and reinstall even i'm sure that there's a way to have all your old OpenRC services enabled in Systemd. Format and reinstall is always the best way to have a clean file system. I raccomand you to install root and home in different paritions in order to make it easy to reinstall the system in the future without loosing your personal data.

About USE flags: i'm not an expert, i've never used them but, for what i know, in Sabayon you can easily install packages from portage exactly like gentoo.

[Cb7]

Hi Tedel,
for my experience i suggest you to format and reinstall even i'm sure that there's a way to have all your old OpenRC services enabled in Systemd. Format and reinstall is always the best way to have a clean file system. I raccomand you to install root and home in different paritions in order to make it easy to reinstall the system in the future without loosing your personal data.

wat.

Let me disagree.
From my experience, formatting isn't a option to do, it's like swapping dirt under carpet instead of cleaning. The best way is to learn how to keep things clean, instead of occasionally formatting drive.

However I must agree that having at least separate /home is sometimes helpful.


And back to the topic.
Tedel, solving problem with DM is fairly simple, no need to reinstall. Switch to systemd, before you log in in xdm switch to TTY, log in as root and:

Code: Select all

systemctl disable display-manager  # that disables current DM, which is xdm
systemctl enable kdm  # enables kdm as display-manager
systemctl restart display-manager && exit  # restarts DM, supposedly starting kdm, and logouts you from root

There are may be some other services that you would want to enable, like bluetooth, ntpd, ntpdate, etc.
Also useful: https://wiki.sabayon.org/index.php?titl ... O:_systemd

If you would want to use Portage, you should know that Sabayon has a lot of customized USE flags, and thus modifying global ones when using Portage may in effect even break your system, not to mention that it'll make it incompatible with Entropy…
Beside reading wiki pages about it, there's post that explains it a bit.
USE flags aren't really in place for speeding up things, their main goal is to allow customization. It's not like it wouldn't give you speedup if configured properly, but on such powerful machines that we have today it wouldn't really be noticeable…
Also, if you want USE, I would rather suggest going Gentoo way, just install Gentoo in VM, to see how nice it would be to use it.

[Provia]

Hi Tedel,
for my experience i suggest you to format and reinstall even i'm sure that there's a way to have all your old OpenRC services enabled in Systemd. Format and reinstall is always the best way to have a clean file system. I raccomand you to install root and home in different paritions in order to make it easy to reinstall the system in the future without loosing your personal data.

wat.

Let me disagree.
From my experience, formatting isn't a option to do, it's like swapping dirt under carpet instead of cleaning. The best way is to learn how to keep things clean, instead of occasionally formatting drive.

However I must agree that having at least separate /home is sometimes helpful.


And back to the topic.
Tedel, solving problem with DM is fairly simple, no need to reinstall. Switch to systemd, before you log in in xdm switch to TTY, log in as root and:

Code: Select all

systemctl disable display-manager  # that disables current DM, which is xdm
systemctl enable kdm  # enables kdm as display-manager
systemctl restart display-manager && exit  # restarts DM, supposedly starting kdm, and logouts you from root

There are may be some other services that you would want to enable, like bluetooth, ntpd, ntpdate, etc.
Also useful: https://wiki.sabayon.org/index.php?titl ... O:_systemd

You are right, maybe you have misunderstood what i was trying to say. I was not saying "when a problem occurs, then format and reinstall" just that in case of this important switch(from OpenRC to Systemd) i suggested to make a new installation because many default things are changed. For example after the switch to systemd i was not able to get plymouth splash working. I agree with you about keep things clean. I always try to solve problem myself and report bugs if necessary instead of formatting. I have keep an old Sabayon installation for years befor a complete reinstall.
This was just to be clear

[Cb7]

I think that I didn't misunderstood what you have wrote (and what you've tried to say).
It's just not the best way.
That is because of several reasons.

For rolling release distro such as Sabayon there always will be “important switch”, this time it may be init switch from OpenRC to systemd, next time it'll be switch from one display server to another (Xorg → Wayland), and then… who knows what lies ahead?
And trying to convince me, that you're not saying “reinstall!” when problems arise… Well, switching from OpenRC to systemd is a problem in many cases, like this one. And you did suggest to just reinstall… That's just saying that reinstall isn't needed as long as there's no problem that is, perhaps, a bit more complex.
I'm not saying that it's wrong in every situation to reinstall, it may be easier for many (if not most) of users, but it defeats one of goals rolling release distro: “(…) no need to reinstall”. Please note, that I refer to what you've advised, not to what actually happens on your Sabayon installs.

Oh, and it's just sound kinda like Widows: “(…) doesn't work? - Just reinstall”

That being said, I agree that there are still unresolved problems with switch to systemd, like mentioned by you Splash issue. While I am rather pleased to not have new Splash, I understand that it's a problem and thus I'm interested in resolving it. Is there bug report for it, where I could give some more additional info, or just to confirm it? (Quick search through bugs didn't return anything useful - if bug report still haven't been made, could you make it, and somehow ping me about it, so I could confirm it?)

Yea, being clear is always a good thing